10 Subtropical Gardening. 



pushed forth eyes near the base, cutting them in pieces, an eye, or 

 bud, in each. In spring the older plants should be potted and 

 grown on in heat, so as to be fit to plant out about the middle of 

 June. On the whole, although so fine and distinct, it is not 

 suitable for any but mild and warm parts of the southern half of 

 these islands; but in such is as indispensable as any other plant 

 herein mentioned. 



The Cannas. — If there were no plants of handsome habit and 

 graceful leaf available for the improvement of our flower gardens 

 but these we need not despair, for they possess almost every quality 

 the most fastidious could desire, and present a most useful and 

 charming variety. The larger kinds make grand masses, while all 

 may be associated intimately with flowering plants — an advantage 

 that does not belong to some free-growing things like the Castor- 

 oil plant. The Canna ascends as boldly, and spreads forth as fine a 

 mass of leaves as any ; but may be closely grouped with much 

 smaller subjects. The general tendency of most of our flower- 

 garden plants is to assume a flatness and dead level, so to speak, 

 and it is the very qualities possessed by the Cannas for counteracting 

 this that makes them so valuable. Even the grandest of the other 

 subjects preserve this tameness of upper surface outline when 

 grown in great quantities : not so these, the leaves of which, even 

 when grown in dense groups, always carry the eye up pleasantly 

 from the humbler plants, and are grand aids in effecting that har- 

 mony between the important tree and shrub embellishments of our 

 gardens and their surroundings, and tlie dwarf flower-bed vegeta- 

 tion which is so much wanted. 



Another charm of these most useful subjects is their power of 

 withstanding the cold and storms of autumn. They do so better 

 than many of our Jiardy open-air plants, so that when the last 

 leaves have been blown from the lime, and the dahlia and heliotrope 

 have been hurt from frost, you may see them waving as greenly and 

 gracefully as the vegetation of a temperate stove. Many of the 

 subtropical plants, used for the beauty of their leaves, are so tender 



